Posted on 07/01/2010 12:28:15 PM PDT by neverdem
The National Rifle Association came out forcefully on Thursday against Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court, saying her positions “represent a clear and present danger to the right to keep and bear arms.”
Senior executives for the gun rights group said they have examined Kagan’s record and found “nothing to indicate support for the Second Amendment.” They also labeled her “clearly out of step with mainstream America.”
The NRA indicated it will "key vote" Kagan’s confirmation, a scoring process the group uses in its decision to endorse candidates and sitting members of Congress on gun rights issues, according to NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.
“With no judicial record, only Kagan’s political career can be reviewed,” Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, and Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement. “And this provides no reason to trust her with Americans’ firearms freedom. Throughout her career, she has repeatedly demonstrated a clear hostility to the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution.”
RELATED ARTICLES Gun control group endorses Kagan Kagan finished testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and despite opposition from the NRA and several conservative-leaning groups, her confirmation appears to be on track. The only question now is how many Republicans will vote for her. The Senate Judiciary Committee will likely hold a vote on her confirmation after the July 4 recess, with a full Senate vote coming shortly thereafter.
During Kagan’s confirmation hearing this week, Republican gun rights supporters repeatedly pressed her on whether she believes the Second Amendment is a fundamental right.
Kagan’s description of Second Amendment cases, including Monday’s high court ruling limiting the right of state and local governments to regulate gun ownership, as “settled law” troubled the group.
The NRA released a statement Monday arguing that Kagan has shown a “hostility” towards the right to bear arms. The release cites her role in developing the Clinton administration's 1998 ban on the importation of certain models of semi-automatic rifles; notes during her time at the Clinton White House mentioning the NRA and Ku Klux Klan as “bad-guy” organizations; and her comment to Justice Thurgood Marshall that she was “not sympathetic” to a challenge to the District of Columbia’s handgun ban.
In their statement, as well as in an accompanying letter to Senate Judiciary Committee members, LaPierre and Cox said the confirmation vote would be used in the NRA’s process of evaluating candidates.
“did the NRA finally notice?”
You seem to be here on FR a lot... did you not notice that the NRA had noticed Kagan? There were links to NRA statements concerning her nomination in previous threads.
http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=5936
I have caller ID. I have gotten several calls over the last several days. I am sure they want a donation. They won’t get it from me.
Fine. But I’ve learn to trust other firearm ownership groups more than NRA.
NRA has become too concerned about how to play politics, losing simple truth, facts and fundamental god given rights, in the process.
RE: “Someone at the NRA has been reading FR and finally got a clue.”
*******************
Maybe they got sick of calling members about canceled and expired subscriptions and decided to finally confront the threats to gun rights.
GOA is the new NRA. The NRA is not what it used to be.
"She should not serve on any court, let alone be confirmed to a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land. The NRA is strongly opposed to the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. This vote matters and will be a part of future candidate evaluations."
Joint Statement by Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President & CEO, and Chris Cox, Executive Director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action
There may be no vote a United States Senator casts that is more important than a vote to confirm a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now that the Court has clearly stated that the Second Amendment is a fundamental, individual right that applies to all law-abiding Americans, NRA members and gun owners expect a nominee to the Court to fully support, defend and preserve that freedom.
We have carefully examined the career, written documents and public statements of nominee Elena Kagan and have found nothing to indicate any support for the Second Amendment. On the contrary, the facts reveal a nominee who opposes Second Amendment rights and is clearly out of step with mainstream Americans.
Therefore, the NRA is strongly opposed to Kagan’s confirmation to the Court.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she refused to declare support for the Second Amendment, saying only that the matter was “settled law.”
This was eerily similar to the scripted testimony of Justice Sonia Sotomayor last year, prior to her confirmation to the Court. When pressed on the Second Amendment then, Sotomayor also referred to the issue as “settled law.”
But in the recently decided case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, Sotomayor ignored the “settled law” of the Heller decision and signed a dissenting opinion that declared, “I can find nothing in the Second Amendment’s text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as ‘fundamental’ insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes.”
It has become obvious that “settled law” is the scripted code of an anti-gun nominee’s confirmation effort. The NRA is not fooled. No member of the U.S. Senate should be either.
With no judicial record, only Kagan’s political career can be reviewed. And this provides no reason to trust her with Americans’ firearms freedom. Throughout her career, she has repeatedly demonstrated a clear hostility to the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution.
As a clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, Kagan said she was “not sympathetic” to a challenge to Washington, DC’s ban on firearms. As a domestic policy advisor in the Clinton White House, a colleague described her as “immersed” in Clinton’s aggressive assaults on the Second Amendment. She was involved in Clinton’s scheme to ban more than 50 types of commonly-owned semiautomatic firearms – an effort described as “…taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns.”
As U.S. Solicitor General, Kagan chose not to file a brief last year in the landmark McDonald case, thus taking the position that incorporating the Second Amendment and applying it to the states was of no interest to the Obama Administration or the federal government.
These are not the positions of a person who supports the Second Amendment and, in fact, represent a clear and present danger to the right to keep and bear arms.
Kagan’s record clearly reveals that she does not believe that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right. In her recent testimony, she refused to acknowledge respect for the God-given right of self-defense.
She should not serve on any court, let alone be confirmed to a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land.
The NRA is strongly opposed to the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. This vote matters and will be a part of future candidate evaluations.
-- nraila.org --
and the idiot NRA will still back him as long as he SAYS he is pro-gun rights
What this directly says about the NRA is:
1. The organization is not optimistic about Republicans taking control of the Senate next year; and
2. The possibility of Chuck Schumer replacing Reid as Majority Leader is, from a Second Amendment perspective, a leap from the frying pan into the fire.
If Reid loses but the Dems hold the Senate, that's as close to a "worst case scenario" that I can imagine.
The way they have been behaving lately, the NRA is a threat to firearms freedom!
Thanks for posting the NRA’s statement.
AND FOR ALL YOU IGNORANT ANTIGUN NRA HATING IDIOTS:
1. The NRA didn’t become a lobbying group until 1974.
2. While whiners complain about mail, guys like me get out the checkbook.
3. The NRA fought against Parker, not Heller. That’s because Parker was filed before Roberts and Alito. We would have lost. The NRA knows how to count to the number nine.
4. The goa has never done a single thing in it’s entire history. It’s the NRA and the SAF that filed all those lawsuits.
5. The “R” in the NRA stands for rifle. Not Republican. Get rid of Reid AFTER taking control of Congress or you’ll be whining about gun control and pleading for the NRA again. As always.
6. The antigunners hate the NRA just as much as some freepers. That explains the mentality of some freepers.
7. The media doesn’t know the name of any progun group other than the NRA. That should tell you something but you’re too stupid to understand.
8. The goa is the only gun group that asked the Supreme Court to take the narrow view. So far, they haven’t filed a single lawsuit to take responsibility for their actions. It’s the NRA and the SAF that filed all those lawsuits.
9. Lazy, stupid people always have an excuse not to get involved.
Tell me a single thing the goa has ever done on their own.
McDonald vs. Chicago. Nope, SAF.
Katrina victims? Nope, NRA.
Winnetka Lawsuits? Nope, SAF and NRA
Morton Grove Lawsuit? Nope, NRA.
San Francisco? Nope, NRA
Evanston? Nope, NRA and SAF
Parker? Nope, Robert Levy and it’s a good thing the case became Heller with Roberts and Alito or we would have lost. That’s why the NRA tried to stop it.
Heller? Nope, Levy again.
United Nations attacks? Nope, NRA as a Non Government Organization.
Free legal support for their members? Nope, NRA.
Even Basil’s Second Amendment Sisters give women’s classes
JPFO? They aren’t even a lobbying group.
Who does the leftist media fear? I’ll give you a hint, the initials are NRA.
NO ONE CAN EXPLAIN WHAT THE goa HAS EVER DONE ON THEIR OWN IN THEIR ENTIRE HISTORY. NO ONE.
“AND FOR ALL YOU IGNORANT ANTIGUN NRA HATING IDIOTS”
***
So I’m anti-gun because I joined GOA and left NRA? You’re a riot. As for idiots, your village is looking for you.
SHE NEEDS US AND WE NEED HER TO WIN!
DOWN WITH HARRY REID - WE NEED TO TAKE HARRY DOWN!
www.sharronangle.com
Excellent points. Here’s a question for all the NRA critics: when was the last time you attended a meeting of your local NRA Members’ Council? I’ll bet you not one of those “the NRA is dead to me” crowd has ever been involved on the grass roots level. And they won’t be with the GOA either.
When was the last time you attended a meeting of your local NRA Members’ Council?
When was the last time you attended a meeting of your local NRA Members’ Council?
When was the last time you attended a meeting of your local NRA Members’ Council?
They never supported the disclose act. They agreed not to fight it on the final vote in exchange for a specific exemption. The alternative was to risk losing the fight and being crippled in future fights. Having gone down that road with McCain-Feingold they chose to ensure they could keep doing business if it passed. You may not agree with that decision, but there’s no reason to misrepresent it as supporting the bill.
BTW, the fact that the Dems offered the NRA that deal shows that they they feared by the Dema. The fact that the GOA wasn’t shows the Dems aren’t concerned about them in the least.
When was the last time you attended a meeting of your local NRA Members’ Council?
No, he said you are an anti-gun idiot. He is right.
Now tell us what the GOA has done, or shut up.
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